NHS passport proposals are just more grubby politics from May and Hunt

The NHS needs a proper response to its problems - not distraction with false claims about so-called 'health tourism' and with un-implementable plans.

The
government is considering making hospitals check all patients
passport and papers before giving them healthcare, MPs were
told
yesterday.

Jeremy
Hunt - rather than working to meet the real challenges of the NHS -
is playing the
politics of distraction during Autumn Statement week.
Hunt’s
– and Theresa May’s – preferred side
show istough
talk about how they are “determined to stamp out abuse of the
system”. Hunt’s most senior civil servant, Chris Wormald,
suggested this week thatevery citizen in
England would have
to show his or
her identity
to receive health care,
including for emergency and primary care, having broken bones reset,
pre-admission stays in intensive care, and rides in ambulances.

This
is a politically
motivated move rather than a response to
patient needs and human rights. The
government – yet again – is
running
scared of the tabloid press's ability to set the agenda in social
policy.

There
are very small
numbers of migrants who come here with pre-existing health
conditions and find themselves registering with the health service.
There is already a system in place for hospitals to recover the cost
of treating patients who are ineligible for NHS care. There is
absolutely no data or evidence to support the idea of large numbers
of overseas visitors coming to the UK specifically to seek out free
treatment. If anything, more people are likely to come to work in the
NHS.

This
proposal is just another in a long line of attempts by government
ministers to convince the public that they are “tough on
immigration”.But
in truth, as
BMA
Chair Mark
Porter told the Today programme this morning, the issue is a
“pinprick
on top of the actual problems facing the NHS” - and
the suggestion of passport control in our hospitals not a
“proportionate” response nor one that will solve the NHS’s
actual problems.

Doctors’
primary ethical duty is to respond to the needs of their patients.
NHS staff should not be required to make judgements on the
immigration status of patients or their entitlement to treatment
under the regulations. Indeed
doctors have already reacted with fury with many vowing to boycott
any such plan. Ben White, one of the junior doctors involved in the
recent High Court challenge, tweeted "Well, I certainly won’t be asking anyone for their passport before
resuscitating them, thanks.”

There
are also wider implications of seeking identity proof. Timely
treatment keeps people out of hospital, stops the spread of
infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, and ultimately saves money
in future treatment costs. Denying healthcare to people who need
it—including pregnant
women, torture survivors, and people with communicable
diseases—is simply inhumane and unpragmatic.

And
what ofTheresa
May’s role in creating this narrative of “health tourism”?
As Nick Cohen points out in the Guardian, the
“manufactured psuedo-scandal” of
“health tourism” was
given wings in 2013 by dishonest comments
the then Home Secretary made about
the “feeling” that such a problem existed. The grubby episode
showed “how willing she is to live with lies” in
her pursuit of power,
Cohen adds. This
is of course the same May who, as
home secretary, authorised taxpayer-funded
vans to tour the streets emblazoned with ‘go home’; who,
as home secretary, made up stories about being unable to deport
foreign criminals because they had a
pet cat. The
same Theresa May who,
was part of a government that called disabled people on benefits
scroungers,
shirkers, and skivers. May is the architect of the scheme
that forces immigrants who’ve worked and paid taxes in the UK for
years to leave if they earn less than £35,000.
Who
advocates a points-based
immigration system that
would
mean the low-paid
migrant workers who form the backbone of the care sector would be
denied entry to Britain.

Ensuring
eligibility for NHS services is always important, but these proposals
go much too far. It is unlikely they could ever be turned into a
serious policy that would be accepted by patients and the public,
that is, howing your passport before undergoing treatment.

This
proposal is not really about saving money. It is about deflecting the
blame for the NHS
crisis away from the real
challenges of dealing
with an NHS beset by funding cuts, demoralised staff, and
privatisation. An health and care system where general practice, A&E,
public health and social care are all in crisis. Theresa
May’s government needs to abandon their
dismantling of
the
NHS and
looking for scapegoats to blame,
and
focus
instead
on
saving
it.

About the author

Kailash Chand is a retired GP and PCT chair. A health campaigner and founder of 'Drop the NHS bill E-petition', he was given an OBE in 2010 for services to the NHS.

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